AHOY Comics’ new anthology PROJECT: CRYPTID, which has its first issue debuting this month, offers up scares and silliness as different writers and artists take on creatures from legends. Seven of the anthology’s writers — Mark Russell, Paul Constant, Bryce Ingman, Melissa F. Olson, Jazzlyn Stone, Henry Barajas, and Alisa Kwitney — all spoke to Cemetery Dance about their creatures of choice, the process of mixing horror with humor, and what makes comics a good medium for scary stories.
(Interviews conducted by Danica Davidson)
Mark Russell
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
My story is about a yeti, because I wanted it to be about this ancient mythic creature who lives on Mount Everest dealing with the fact that their habitat has suddenly become a tourist attraction.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
The way I like to approach this is to embed the humor in the horror. I didn’t want to write a horror story with some funny lines. I wanted to write a horror story where the horror is also what’s funny about it.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
Comics may be the perfect medium for telling horror stories. Aside from the fact that you have page turns and splash pages which you can use as great horror storytelling devices, as a reader, if you see an image that really haunts you or creeps you out, you can linger on it. Whereas, in TV or film, it’s there for a second or two and then it’s gone. Horror is amplified by the way you can slow down time when you’re reading a comic.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
If you want, you can follow me on my socials. Threads, Bluesky, Instagram. @manruss
Paul Constant
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
I live in Seattle, and I wanted to tell a story set in the area. I figured that someone else would have already called dibs on the Sasquatch, our region’s most famous cryptid, and so I did a little research and discovered a lesser-known local cryptid called the Gumberoo — a smiling, hairless, bearlike monster that often explodes. It was such a weird, mysterious creature that I had to learn more about it — and add to the legend of the Gumberoo with a story of my own.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
The best work from my favorite comics writers, from Steve Gerber to Peter David to Mark Russell, lives at the nexus of horror and comedy. I read a lot of their work to prepare for writing my story. (In general, asking “what would Steve Gerber do” is a pretty great life hack.)
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
It’s all about what happens in the gutters. The most effective horror is the horror you don’t see — Michael Myers lurking in the shadows, the Psycho shower scene. And comics aren’t just a collaboration between writers and artists; they’re a collaboration between storytellers and readers. So when the artist and I suggest that something horrible is going to happen and we let the most gruesome parts play out in the space between the panels, we invite the reader to imagine the most horrifying parts of the story on their own. Nobody’s better at scaring you than you are. And yeah, when I was a teenager, I submerged myself in old EC Comics horror reprints. I think I’ve read every Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear comic ever published.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
You can sign up for my free newsletter, find links to all my comics, and follow me on social media by navigating your interwhoozle gizmos to paulconstant.com/about/.
Bryce Ingman
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
My story is about the Loveland Frogman, a lesser-known cryptid. I dig the Frogman because he can harness and manipulate electricity using ordinary wooden sticks. Try getting Bigfoot to do that.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
I’m afraid that, whatever the genre, I’m physically incapable of writing anything that doesn’t include at least a little humor. It’s all about finding the right balance for the story you want to tell. And I’m very happy with that balance in my Frogman story for PROJECT: CRYPTID.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
I would argue that any genre of story can be effectively realized through the incredibly flexible medium of comics. Horror is no exception. I read and loved a ton of horror comics (and horror novels) growing up. Anyone remember Taboo from Spiderbaby Grafix? Creepy stuff…
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
Please go to comicsahoy.com!
Melissa F. Olson
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
My story, “The Tall Tale Tour,” is about the hodag, one of the “fearsome critters” described in early Paul Bunyan tales in my home state of Wisconsin. To be honest, I first picked the hodag because I thought it would be funny to write about such a specific, regional creature instead of one of the more famous and well-known cryptids. As I got deeper into the research, though, I really came to appreciate it as a symbol of a crucial moment in Wisconsin’s culture and history. I think that attitude shift actually ended up coming through in my story.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
You know, I really do feel like I’ve been training my whole life for this. I’ve always blended horror and humor into my fiction, so bringing that sensibility with me as I moved into comics felt like bringing your favorite comfortable furniture along to a new house. At this point I’m not actually sure I could write something without horror and humor, but I know I never want to try.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
Telling a great horror story is possible in any medium, but the storytelling conventions you use when writing a horror novel or screenplay are different from the conventions used in comic books. So for me, the trick is figuring out how to write horror in a way that takes advantage of what makes comics unique from other mediums. For example, in a comic panel, you can have a text box with what a character is thinking or speaking, and have that text juxtapose with the image in interesting ways. That doesn’t work in fiction, and requires a lot of setup in screenwriting, but it’s a great tool in comics. As for my own reading, to be honest, I love stories that are dark, but I disengage when they cross the line over to bleak. So I’m pretty careful about starting new horror comics. Lately I’ve been reading a lot more, though, as part of research for the ghost ship project I’m working on. At the moment I’m really digging Something is Killing the Children and Haunt You Til the End.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
Visit linktr.ee/melissafolson for all your Melissa Olson needs.
Jazzlyn Stone
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
We wanted to explore the way that punk rock is — at its best — often a rallying cry for marginalized people of the working class. For Liana and I at least, we found punk around the same time we joined the workforce. Our comic is about a Siren using her voice to inspire an uprising and get her band back together.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
Well, I’ve always found life horrifying, and the fact that we are sentient meat witnessing each other continue to survive is so terrifyingly bizarre it goes back around to become hilarious. Humor and horror are complementary because they are both instinctual.
Writing with Liana Kangas makes writing comedy easier — they’re naturally very funny. Ted & Ro carried a lot of the comedy weight with their art, and Sarah Litt kept us all on the rails with a kind and firm editor’s hand. My goal with collaborative art is to surround myself with a team I respect and not to be afraid of being wrong.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
Horror is unique because it requires audience participation to fulfill its magic. At anytime you can pause the movie, or stop turning the pages, and the spell will be broken, the monsters will go away. But by choosing to continue to consume the story, you’re participating in your own terror. I think that’s fun.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
I’m on the world wide web at jazzlynstone.com.
Henry Barajas
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
The story I cover with Saly Lockheart is The Beast of Gévaudan. I was influenced by this story when I watched Puppet History, which was featured in their fabulous game show. My mind filled in the blanks with the drama and gore, so here we are.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
For this historical fiction, I was thinking of character first. I already have the reader with the plot and cryptid, so I wanted to highlight Ecuyer Babin and the famous werewolf hunter, Marie-Jeanne.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
The beauty of comics is there’s magic in the gutters. The mind is always in the gutter when you’re reading a comic. The visuals aid the reader’s imagination where mediums like prose and film limit. You dictate the pace, sound, and atmosphere.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
People can find me at their local comic shop.
Alisa Kwitney
What supernatural creature do you cover in your story, and why?
My creature is a chupacabra, which is a goat-sucking reptilian canid, and a fairly recent addition to the cryptid bestiary. That was part of its appeal for me; the first sightings date back to the eighties, a decade that is not, for me, an unimaginable past shrouded in legend and mist. The chupas have mainly been spotted in Puerto Rico and Latin America, but also in New Mexico, where my daughter was living. When I visited her at the Earthship Biotecture Institute last year, I was struck by the eeriness of the landscape, and also by a story about a young woman who was attacked by mesa dogs.
AHOY Comics mixes horror and humor. How do you approach writing in this style?
Ah, the timeless question that has puzzled philosophers and bards: What is funny, and how do I make it? Horror is easier to define, and duplicate. Horror is scrambled eggs, hamburger and cheese toast: It is three-chord punk rock. Humor, on the other hand, is one of those New York Times recipes that looks deceptively simple — grilled corn and avocado salad, say — which turns out to have seventeen steps, and requires getting the proportions just right. It’s a Fleetwood Mac song you try to play acoustic, because it has no bar chords, but then you discover it requires elaborate plucking patterns, and possibly a madman on the drums.
I approach writing in this style by over-analyzing it, and then saying, Ah, screw it, and just writing the scene. I do try to avoid what I think of as “the joke shaped object,” which has the shape of a joke, but is not actually funny. There is a lot of not-funny and not-horror in my funny horror. And because I am a determinedly upbeat person, I rely more on body horror than on actual soul-crushing darkness.
What do you think makes comics a good medium for telling horror stories? Have you read a lot of horror comics?
I fell in love with horror comics at age six or seven, and with horror-comedy at age eight with DC Comics’ PLOP comic. I had loved comics before, but when I picked up my first House of Mystery, with Cain as its sardonic, mean-spirited host, it gave me such a white-hot rush of reading pleasure that I was instantly hooked. My grandparents told me it would make me go blind, and I already needed glasses, but I didn’t care.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
You can find out more about me at all the usual places — alisakwitney.com, @akwitney on the dread twitter/X, @[email protected], facebook.com/alisa.kwitney.sheckley, and k.witty on Instagram. I also co-host Endless: A Sandman Podcast with Lani Diane Rich.
